The Liverpool cookery classes where you learn to make pasta like an Italian

Paola Paulucci is sharing her passion for home cooking in Liverpool classes which teach the secrets of how make pasta just like Italians do.

The former marketing exec started showing people the tricks of her kitchen after she was surprised to find not everyone made their own pasta.

“My grandparents had Italian restaurants and a bakery in Brazil, so I grew up around the idea of having your own business and working around food, and as a child in Genova I was surrounded by family who loved cooking,” she explains.

“I moved to England when I was 17 and I just assumed everyone made all their food from scratch. I thought everyone had a tradition of making pasta and bread and pastry at home. But when I started telling my friends I did those things I realised that actually it was the exception rather than usual.

“The idea for the classes came when I worked in an office and people were interested in the pasta I took for my lunch. I was inviting my friends to come over and I’d show them how to make pasta, they loved it and it just evolved from there.”

Paola and her fiancé Andy set up their business, Flour Will Fly, five years ago, initially running classes on Saturday and Sunday mornings from the kitchens of Olive restaurant on Castle Street.

As that took off they moved along the road to Rudy’s where they stayed for two years, building up a growing customer base of parties and corporate bookings, before deciding it was time to open their own premises.

Three years ago, they relocated Flour Will Fly to Oriel Chambers, off Water Street, carefully replicating an Italian home-style kitchen rather than a commercial culinary school.

Paola knew immediately that she had found her new career.

“I’d been working full-time in my marketing job and part-time doing the pasta making classes so I didn’t sleep much for about three years! It was madness. 

“When we opened our own place, the plan was for me to test the waters for about six months and keep both jobs, but three days in I knew that was it, I wanted to just do this, so I gave in my notice. I wanted to dive into the business and do it full-time and it’s best decision I’ve ever made.”

Sadly, Andy had been suffering with cancer and died in October 2021, but Paola was determined to carry on with the business they’d created.

“He was more behind the scenes than me, but we founded it together and still so much of the business today is Andy’s vision and his appreciation for Italian food,” she says.

Flour Will Fly’s signature course is an introduction to pasta making class which Paola says has proved incredibly popular with everyone from work teams to hen dos and families.

“We get all sorts of people and all ages who love Italian food and want to try something new, so we have a lot of couples, friends, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, as well as corporate groups. 

“Our classes are usually on from Thursday to Sunday, and people will either take home their pasta at the end of the class or they’ll cook it and eat it here. Because it’s so fresh it’s so easy to cook, it takes less than a minute, then we give instructions on some really easy-to-make sauces.

“The idea is to show people how to make their food taste like it does in a restaurant. We follow the principles of Italian food which is all about cooking with only a few ingredients that are the best quality, so the food tastes simple but fantastic.”

As her classes have been so successful, Paola has added extra ones for pizza and cannoli, and there’s also a small deli where people can buy authentic ingredients which she imports from Italy.

“We have gorgeous specialist ingredients that will take people’s cooking to the next level, like really good quality nduja, Calabrian chillis, and lots of different types of flour to make pasta and Neapolitan pizza.”

Consistent five star reviews prove Liverpool cooks are loving what Paola teaches them and they can’t believe how simple it is once you know how.

“People say they find the process far easier than they expected – the moment where they cut the tagliatelle from the machine is where it all clicks and they realise that with the right guidance and ingredients it’s perfectly doable. 

“I always get emails after the class saying the pasta tastes so different, it’s the best they’ve ever eaten – and they’ve made it themselves!”

Find out more about the classes on the website HERE.

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